Jan 10, 2017

Millions Mean Magic in Southern California

As crazy as it may sound, making your million-dollar home community stand out among the competition can be more difficult than it would seem – particularly in a market like Orange County, California, where the median new single family home price is over $1.1 million. How do you offer more than just a nice house? And what if everyone offers great views – how do you differentiate? Our Vice President of Advisory Adam McAbee went in search of some of Southern California’s greatest new housing communities in this price range from 2016, and what he found was eye-opening.

As seen in the video above, some of the most interesting projects we found include The Summit by Richmond American in San Marcos, Coral Canyon and Coral Crest by The New Home Company in Newport Beach and a surprising standout, The Oaks Farms by Davidson Communities in San Juan Capistrano. All opened for sale less than 10 months ago and offer large single family homes on relatively large lots (by California standards, anyway), with starting prices that range from $1.2 to nearly $7 million.

Some of the key takeaways include:

Indoor/outdoor living is not new, but some of these projects took that concept to a whole new level, even making it difficult to determine where the “inside” ends and the “outside” begins.

Everyone knows that golf or ocean views can command premiums, but what about an equestrian center? Davidson Communities is achieving notable premiums for these views today.

There seemed to be a particular focus on interesting bathtubs this year.